Chris Hadfield: Out of this World – the Guardian
“Since returning from space last year, he has faced an old-school astronaut problem, one that general boredom with the space programme had all but erased: not just celebrity, but a sort of stunned adoration. At a recent event, he was asked in front of 5,000 people, “What is the meaning of life?””

The Decline and Fall of France – the National Interest
“France’s economy is not just doing badly. It is in profound decline. The slide has proceeded far enough now that businesspeople and politicians across the Continent increasingly refer to France as the “sick man of Europe”—quite a distinction at a moment when Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy share the hospital ward.”

The Bullies Will Keep Winning if Kids Don’t Fight Back – New York Post
But there have always been absentee parents and mean children. Yes, the Internet provides more opportunities for a kind of bullying, but what’s really changed is that real bullies don’t face consequences anymore.

I Challenged Hackers to Investigate Me and What They Found Out Was Chilling – PandoDaily
“What I learned is that virtually all of us are vulnerable to electronic eavesdropping and are easy hack targets. Most of us have adopted the credo “security by obscurity,” but all it takes is a person or persons with enough patience and know-how to pierce anyone’s privacy — and, if they choose, to wreak havoc on your finances and destroy your reputation.”

The High Seas – Slate
“Mauner Mahecha is a family man. A single father, he dotes on his three young girls and provides for his ailing mother, too. But in testimony delivered over a two-week federal trial in Miami, the court heard little about his home life. That’s because, when the 34-year-old wasn’t tending to his children, he was running drugs and masterminding the construction of a fleet of submarines to silently ferry tons of cocaine beneath the seas. And he would have pulled it off if it hadn’t been for an unassuming engine mechanic who risked his life to ensure the narco-subs never left shore.”

Mandela’s Prosecutor – Virginia Quarterly Review
“Percy would attain his goal. He would become the first Jewish deputy attorney general in South Africa—​first of the Orange Free State, then of the highly populated Transvaal, which included the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria. “He used to say, ‘Can you believe it?’ ” said David. “ ‘That they would appoint a Jewish attorney general in this very conservative Afrikaans province. Isn’t it remarkable?’ ” But this was all much later, after when, as deputy attorney general, he was presented with a case in which a raid on a farmhouse in a quiet suburb called Rivonia yielded a bumper crop of evidence against a group of people who had been agitating for a while, and now were considering a violent overthrow of the government. One of them was Nelson Mandela.”